Agenda item

Up to 15 minutes are allowed for public participation. Participants are restricted to 3 minutes each.

Minutes:

The following question was asked of the Committee by Mr Ian Forster:

 

Dear Chairman/Members of the Committee, I am concerned about what I consider to be a lack of transparency, democracy and probably more importantly the lack of respect for elected Councillors by the council Planning Department.

 

In a recent planning application (137092) submitted by my daughter the elected Ward Councillor (Councillor Tom Regis) submitted a written request for the application to be called in and dealt with by The Planning Committee. The request set out at length his reasons detailing relevant planning policies, in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution.

 

The entry on the West Lindsey District Council website showed this had been called in and also the Planning Officer requested an extension to the time for consideration/deliberation. This was taken (wrongly as it transpires) as the relevant parties agreeing to the Councillors wishes. It then came as something of a surprise to receive a refusal notice under delegated powers.

 

My understanding is that Councillor Regis was not consulted by the Planning Officer, to explain why the officers did not accept his reasoning or the policy references. In a subsequent email following the refusal of permission it was explained that the Chairman “had viewed the officer report and the representations related to this application”. It is unclear whether the Chairman had read or considered the reasons for the “call in” and I understand that the Chairman never discussed the matter with the Ward Councillor before making his decision that the application should be refused.

 

I am particularly concerned that the decision should be made without at least a discussion with the Ward Councillor. It beggars the question, in relation to the determination of planning applications, do we need a Planning Committee or in fact Elected Ward Councillors? Maybe the unelected Planning Officers could deal with all applications by delegated powers thus saving time and a considerable amount of money. I understand that a number of other elected councillors have had similar experiences during recent months.

 

I think it is a sad indictment of Democracy within West Lindsey District Council, particularly when the Government are pushing for more houses to be built when the persons who are elected and know the local issues and concerns best are not even consulted or kept informed.

 

My questions are as follows:-

1. Will the Committee carefully assess and reconsider the terms of the Constitution in so far as it relates to the opportunity for a Member to “call in” an application to be considered by the Planning Committee?

2. Will the Committee consider making it a requirement, that before agreeing to an officer decision, the Chairman should first discuss the matter fully with the WardCouncillor concerned? During such discussions, the reasons should be carefully explained, as to why the issues and planning policies specified are not sufficient in the particular case to justify the determination by the Committee.

3. In the interests of transparency, will the Committee also require that these reasons be set out in writing and included in the application file documents?

 

The Head of Paid Service responded as follows:

 

I would like to thank Mr Forster for his question.  In answering the question it is first important to understand the context in which the Planning Committee operates. 

 

Legally it is a ‘quasi-political’ committee which takes planning decisions in the interests of West Lindsey as a whole.  It is required to take those decisions on the basis of national planning considerations.  Those decisions are also policy led.  In other words the decisions have to be taken in accordance with the national and local policy (National Planning Policy Framework, Central Lincolnshire Local Plan, Neighbourhood Plan) unless any of the material considerations indicate otherwise.  It is also the Council’s strategic committee on planning matters.  In other words the delegations are clear that all proposals which have major significance or are of importance to the district as a whole must be considered by the Planning Committee.

 

The delegations to which Mr Forster refers are universally accepted nationally.  Amongst local planning authorities across England around 95% of decisions on planning applications are taken using some form of delegated powers (West Lindsey District Council takes 95% of decisions in this way).

 

At West Lindsey District Council the current delegation arrangements were introduced by Members in 2011 following a series of workshops which thoroughly examined the issues.  They have been regularly reviewed since by:

 

·         Introducing the role of the Chairman in being consulted on all applications where a Ward Member requests that an application is considered by Committee;

 

·         Requiring all applications which conflict with policy to be determined by committee – as Members make policy only they should agree a breach to that policy.

 

The delegations were last reviewed following an audit of the service in 2017 (the audit gave the service ‘substantial assurance’).

 

Planning and Democracy

 

It is important to remember that the principal role of Members is setting policy.  It is the officers’ role to implement that policy; in planning, this is established through the Central Lincolnshire Local Plan and the relevant Neighbourhood Plans.  However in recognition that planning considerations can be open to interpretation the delegations to officers contain a number of provisions which allow non-strategic applications to be considered at the Planning Committee.  These provisions include:

 

·         Probity conditions (where the applicant is an officer or member or a close relative of an officer or a member);

 

·         Where the planning issues are finely balanced.  In this case objections from neighbours or parish councils can trigger the application being considered by the Planning Committee;

 

·         Ward Member requests, in accordance with the adopted protocol, details of which are given below.

 

Ward Members can request that a planning application is considered by the Planning Committee.  In doing this they need to give ‘planning reasons’ (a proforma is provided for this).  This is because the Planning Committee will have to decide the proposal using planning reasons and it is reasonable that the Member making the request gives some evidence to the Committee on the planning matters or policy they think are at issue.  The Chairman of the Planning Committee is always consulted on any request made by a Ward Member to refer an application to the Planning Committee.  The request also has to be made within 28 days of the application first appearing on a weekly list of new planning applications (N.B. as part of changes introduced after a peer review of the service in 2015 all Ward Members are notified by email of new applications in their ward as soon as they are validated, so 28 days is a minimum).

 

Current Performance

 

Since January 2017 there have been 14 requests from Members to refer applications to the Planning Committee for determination.  In this time the service has dealt with 1400 planning applications.  Of these, 13 call-in requests from Ward Members were discussed with the Chairman of the Planning Committee (the remaining application was not discussed as the Member agreed with the decision made by officers and withdrew his request).  In 5 of the cases the matter was discussed with the Ward Member and the Member agreed with a delegated decision.

 

5 of the 14 decisions complied with the constitutional requirements to provide material planning reasons.  Of these 5, 2 went to the Planning Committee; the remaining 3 were discussed with the Member and their concerns were addressed. 

 

3 of the 14 decisions only partially complied with the constitutional requirements.  6 of the 14 decisions contained either no planning reasons for call-in, no reference to policies or were submitted after a deadline.

 

The Head of Paid Service had also discussed the matter with the Planning Services Manager in preparation for this meeting, and no application where the Chairman of the Planning Committee agreed with the Ward Member that the application should be determined by the Committee had not been considered by the Planning Committee.

 

Members’ Training

 

In order to ensure Members have the necessary skills to be able to act effectively when dealing with planning matters, regular training, to which all Members are invited is undertaken.  This includes identifying the planning reasons and policies they used to raise in making a request for a planning application to be referred to the Planning Committee. It must be stressed that this training is open to all Members, and not just those that sit on the Planning Committee.

 

Conclusions – Planning and Democracy

 

It is often cited that the Planning Committee is about democracy.  If that means Members of the Planning Committee have unfettered discretion to make any decision they want on an application then this is not correct.  They have to make decisions in accordance with the development plan unless material (planning) considerations indicate otherwise.  The democracy in planning comes earlier in the process when Members set the policy in the development plan. 

 

Points of Caution

 

In a lot of ways the delegated arrangements help to protect Members.  Planning is often an area of controversy and has been under the spotlight at a number of Councils over the years due to poor practice – this Council has not been immune to this.  It is also recognised that Members are part of the community they serve.  This focus on the delegations, or ‘planning matters’ is correct as it prevents applications where ‘planning matters’ are not the main issue from being determined by the Planning Committee.

 

Questions

 

1)    The Constitution is about checks and balances.  There is already a provision in the Constitution that allows the Planning Committee Chairman to be consulted on a planning application where a Ward Member has requested an application to be determined on the Planning Committee.  In all cases since January 2017 where this provision has been exercised the view of the Chairman of that committee has prevailed. 

2)    It is also open to the Chairman to discuss the application with the Ward Member before expressing a view on whether the application should be determined by Committee.  It was the view of the Head of Paid Service that this covers Mr Forster’s first two questions.

3)    The Head of Paid Service agreed with Mr Forster’s third question, that all the reasons for referring an application to Committee, or not, should be included in the application file.  There is always room to improve communications.